Not as I Remembered
by PinkWhirlWind
Summary: After the game, Seifer's back, but female


In the Rain By Nix  
  
Not as I Remembered Author: Nix Disclaimers: I don't own ff8, Square Soft does. Warnings: Seifer's female in this one, Seifer kisses Rinoa  
Squall threw an arm over his eyes and forced them closed. It wasn't possible. It absolutely wasn't fucking possible. He remembered Seifer, that cocky grin, blond hair, chin lifted, green eyes daring anyone, just anyone to say something. There was the SeeD exam, Seifer's abrasive words that had driven Squall up on deck. It was hatred he felt. No. It wasn't. It was some emotion he had no name for and he wasn't going to ask the sweet little Rinoa for help. He'd known, from the first time they said Seifer was dead, that he wasn't. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter.  
  
He wanted his Seifer, his Seifer, but not this Seifer, not this Seifer who'd come back to garden today. He let his arm slip over the top of his head, down to the pillow, leather on cotton, the heel of his boot against the wool of his blanket, and the straps on his legs cutting into his pants, and he let a tear slip. Seifer had not left him. And oh the look on Rinoa's face! Even with another tear rebelliously slipping free, the memory of Rinoa in Seifer's arms lifted the corner of his mouth.  
  
It had been six months since they defeated Ultimicia. Squall had dreamed once of seeing Seifer and his friends fishing, smiling. He imagined that was Seifer, in the after life, somewhere happy and safe. When he'd first seen Seifer, it was just after lunch, just after an afternoon training session, and Squall let his mind recreate the details, as he'd stood there on the railing watching into the quad. Rinoa had been waiting for him. Though as he sorted through the memory, he wasn't sure now if she'd been waiting for him, Squall, or him Seifer. Squall thought if he were waiting for someone, it would be Seifer.  
  
She'd waved up at him, where he stood, and even in the memory the sense of time distorted made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. In the time compression they'd found each other, though of each other and found their way back that way. When the rift in time opened, right there in the quad, Squall had not the slightest doubt that it was Seifer stepping through. The polished black boots of the Knight, the flashing gray duster, Squall had let his eyes skim over the figure, over the clothes that didn't fit anymore, up to the pale face, drawn with sharper lines now, and green eyes that saw right through him, as if they'd searched all of time for his own gray ones. There in the center of that arroagant face was the scar Squall had given him, still a bit red, the mirror image of his own. Their eyes had locked, and then, Squall had realized that something had changed.  
  
His eyes drifted down, to the two rises under the black shirt. Seifer Almasy had been his mirror opposite. Now he was his polar opposite. Female. Looking back up into that face, a face that was still Seifer's, still arrogant, still harsh, still challenging for all that it was thinner and not sharper so much more as drawn with finer bones now, fuller lips. They were lips that curled into a snarl almost as fast as one hand reached out and grabbed Rinoa's hand, jerked her close. She was blinking, not thinking fast enough to resist the arm that went around her back and jerked her closer.  
  
Laying there in his bed, still dressed, still wearing the sweaty tee-shirt he'd been wearing when Seifer had come out of the time compression, he tried now to sort out just what it had meant, what that flash of jealousy had meant. Seifer took Rinoa's mouth in a kiss that Squall couldn't see himself delivering, bending the dark haired girl back, one hand traveling up her chest to cup a breast, daring, rude beyond words, and yet, it Squall admitted now, his flash of jealousy wasn't over Rinoa. He clenched his eyes shut again, and refused to think about the way Seifer's shirt curved, the way the curve moved with his breath, or the way his own blood was shifting lower now even though he was doing his best to think about. about his feelings. Thinking about his feelings had always been a good killer for desire in the past. Why it wasn't working now, he didn't know.  
  
Remembering Rinoa's scream of outrage or the crack of her hand on Seifer's cheek, that didn't really do it either. All that did was make Squall roll over and try to get the memory of Seifer's eyes watching him, of Seifer looking lost, so very lost for a moment before half a dozen SeeD overwhelmed, him? Her? Either way, Seifer didn't go down with out a fight and Squall remembered standing there, half frozen as she landed fist into one guy's face, breaking his nose and maybe every blood vessel in his face from the amount of blood. Hand to hand combat skills didn't seem to diminish with whatever else had changed. She threw a kick into the gut of someone else. Then Rinoa tripped her and the Seed's tackled her like she was the most dangerous criminal on the planet. Squall remembered how he couldn't breath then, how the railing had started to cut into his hand with no glove and how his mouth had closed without words forming. Seifer! Seifer was under that heap of angry soliders.  
  
There hadn't been time to get his breath back, to find words to say before they had her hauled to her feet, blood over her face and running down her throat. He didn't know if it were hers, or theirs. She still struggled against the one's holding her arms behind her back, one on each side, Zell and Merrik. One of them stood in front of her, a dark haired man who'd transferred from Esthar after the war, and before Squall could get his breath back, the man's fist slammed into Seifer's gut and drew back for another hit.  
  
Squall sat up abruptly, the sound of his booted feet hitting the floor echoing in his Spartan room and echoing his cry in the memory, "NO!"  
  
Everyone had looked up at him, frozen by a word from the commander and he hated it all the more, all these eyes on him, watching, willing to obey. "No. Do not hit him. Take him to the infirmary. NOW!"  
  
Seifer hung between Zell and Merrik unable to keep her feet just then and Squall feared for his friend. It was that fear that clung to him still, as he got up from his bed and paced. Ten hours later, Seifer lay under a sleep spell in the infirmary, healing from damage to her ribs and bruised internal organs. There wasn't any doubt either that she was a she. Squall did not know what to do.  
  
His door buzzed, drawing him out of his thoughts. It was two steps to his door, and he opened it to find a frantic Selphie. "He's gone!"  
  
"Uh?" Squall blinked, watching the girl wring her hands. "Seifer! Squall, he's just gotten up and left!"  
  
"I thought he was under a sleep spell," Squall said, reaching for Lionheart without thinking why or what for. "Did someone take him?"  
  
It wasn't that far fetched that someone could want revenge against the Sorceress' Knight.  
  
Selphie seemed to think about that one for a moment, her head tilting. "I don't know, but Squall, we have to find him! He's like family!"  
  
"." Squall wondered if all women were equally irritating, if it was some trait they picked playing with the same dolls, as if being cute were some great defense. "I will find him."  
  
Her. Seifer was a her now, and only, Squall still thought he knew where to look. His boots echoed in the hall as he ran. It had gotten to be later at night than he'd expected. No one challenged him or accompanied him as he left Garden and headed towards the rocky training ground that he and Seifer had shared so many times. It was almost as if he were still dreaming.  
  
It never rained in his dreams though. The rain made it harder to make his way up the path. It was hard ground, shale and globs of glass that had been sand or stone before magic echoes hit it. He didn't know how a woman would make it up this incline, let alone an injured woman. At the top though, there she was, just as he'd known she'd be.  
  
Without her duster, she stood there in just the black shirt, silver cross on her chest, Hyperion out, the tip resting on the ground. Lightening exploded across the sky to the side of them and lit her face, outlined the scar, the eyebrows drawn down, lips a tight line. She let go of her blade with one hand and motioned for Squall to come on, just like old times.  
  
"Seifer! I didn't come to fight you!" The rain was dripping inside, straggling the fur of his collar against his neck. "Come back to the infirmary!"  
  
"Oh, I hear you're commander now!" She hissed, lifting her blade. "I hear you're Commander Leonhart! You weren't supposed to get ahead of me!"  
  
Female or not, the old rivalry flashed back to life and Squall found Lionhart in his hands, the Griever moving in the wind, it's silver chain brushing against his wrist as he moved closer, automatically taking up a fighting stance. "And why is that? Because Seifer has to be the best at everything? The first! The oldest! The one who gets to leave!"  
  
She swung. He blocked. They clashed, blade against blade, sparks flew, and Seifer swung his blade around, aiming lower, only to be parried again. "Leave? I'm not the one who refused to talk to anyone!"  
  
That stung and Squall went on the offensive, not making any more headway than Seifer had, though the clang of their fight was louder in the circle of rock than the thunder. Of the acid anger in Squall no words formed, but they beat at each other. Gender aside, Seifer knew how to use a gunblade. Years of unspoken feeling, or of misspoken feeling crashed between them. Until Squall neared his limit break, and events tumbled down like an avalanche.  
  
Seifer spun, her blade landing a hit against Squall opening his jacket through the shoulder, coating hyperion with red. Squall went to one knee, autocast healing, then aura out of habit, though after that hit he was already close to his limit break and Seifer stepped back, lowed her blade, lifted her chin and waited with watchful green eyes. Squall snarled, barely kept himself from calling his limit break and swung. Lionheart stopped. Just a hair from Seifer's throat and Squall's hands shook. There they stood, Seifer unflinching, the magic heated Lionheart at her throat, Squall at the other end, gray eyes full of lightening.  
  
Lionheart hit the rocky ground as Squall grabbed the soaked black shirt and jerked Seifer to him. She was slightly shorter now and he buried a hand in her hair, holding her head as he kissed her, lightening across jade, and he knew her, his tongue moving into the mouth that held the voice of his best and perhaps only true friend, the only one he'd admit anyway. Slowly Seifer's tongue took up this new battle, smaller female hands slipping under Squall's jacket to find their way around him, to pull him closer. Squall moaned into the kiss, trying to touch all the surfaces of Seifer's mouth at once, to claim them all, to punish them with a kind of healing that sought to know they were whole, unbroken. When he broke the kiss, he panted, hot breath against her cheek, "Would you fucking leave me now?"  
  
"Only if you did it yourself. Squall, I'm changed. I was in chains, for so long, and then everything bent and all I could think of was you, all I could hold in my mind was your eyes, and then I stepped out of someplace with no air into the quad. Where am I?"  
  
Squall gripped the smaller body, holding her to him, supporting her as she sagged against him. "You're home, Seifer, you're home. And you haven't changed all that much, really."  
  
"What am I now? Squall? What am I?"  
  
It was impulsive, completely out of Squall's planned behavior, but he whispered, "You're my knight now, Squall's Knight. That's what you are."  
  
Not so much later, Seifer sat on Squall's bed, wearing worn black pants, bondage straps around one leg and empty belt loops around his waist. The shirt was too big as well, laying over breasts just big enough like a drape cloth on a sculpture. Seifer had let Squall dry his hair, let Squall put thick fuzzy socks on his feet and now they sat there, on his bed, his waterproof travel blanket under them, as they cleaned their blades.  
  
There was something deeply erotic, Squall thought, about watching slender Seifer fingers disassemble and clean the automatic pistol part of Hyperion. Seifer was home, Squall had said so, but Squall had this feeling that he was home as well.  
  
"You're smiling," Seifer said, her voice softer and every bit as disgustingly challenging.  
  
"Shut up," Squall said, defended back, with a softer than usual tease, "So are you." 


End file.
